Paper machine

A paper machine (or paper-making machine) is an industrial machine which is used in the <a href="/facts/Pulp_and_paper_industry/EkhVtwNo">pulp and paper industry</a>
to create <a href="/facts/Paper/FUETwwKV">paper</a> in large quantities at high speed. Modern paper-making machines are based on the principles of the Fourdrinier Machine, which uses a moving woven <a href="/facts/Mesh/C57g2JuF">mesh</a> to create a continuous paper web by filtering out the fibres held in a paper stock and producing a continuously moving wet mat of fibre. This is dried in the machine to produce a strong paper web.
The basic process is an industrialised version of the historical process of hand paper-making, which could not satisfy the demands of developing modern society for large quantities of a printing and writing substrate. The first modern paper machine was invented by <a href="/facts/Louis-Nicolas_Robert/0cxr3Tq5">Louis-Nicolas Robert</a> in France in 1799, and an improved version patented in Britain by <a href="/facts/Henry_Fourdrinier/5yc5ejGM">Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier</a> in 1806.
The same process is used to produce <a href="/facts/Paperboard/A1Nq26z2">paperboard</a> on a paperboard machine.

Paper machine open-in-new

Paper machine